[News] strange happenings of 2015

[Chuckman]

What do you do with it, substitute it for chicken? Opening day of northern zone this year I was just about having fever dreams of squirrel cacciatore because they were the only mammals I saw in the woods.

Found plenty of bear scat with brownish-grey fur in it and a bunch of rent stumps and scratched up trees, though, which explains why the bucks weren't visiting their scrapes and rubs.

Saw a bunch of turkeys too, which was a real pain in the ass because they were about four days out of season.

In a stew, in a pot pie, in gravy over biscuits.

The key is to brine them for at least 24 hours first to pull the blood out of the meat, they're very vascular.

Otherwise they're like a chicken thigh, pretty much.

[NemZ]

Why Twitter is dying

Having zero fucks to give about Twitter in the first place, my feelings on this are pretty meh.

That said however, I'm not sure just what it is this person really wants... all those '-isms' are very important indeed to the people that espouse them, and generally they are different ways in which people hope to addresses the fundamental stagnation/abuse problems he's railing against. He seems to be just the latest voice crying "can't we all just get along?" when the answer is pretty clearly no, we can't... at least not in the sphere of the general public. Small groups can survive but can't thrive in a way that anyone can make money serving, as even if you compartmentalize them like Reddit does hostilities still break out from time to time.

The real problem with social media is that no matter what they do with it the end result is connecting people. Have you met people? Many of them are terrible. People who care about building a following and think anyone gives a shit what they have to say are generally even worse, and that's who you're most likely to meet on social media.

[Ornette]

He seems to be just the latest voice crying "can't we all just get along?" when the answer is pretty clearly no, we can't... at least not in the sphere of the general public. Small groups can survive but can't thrive in a way that anyone can make money serving, as even if you compartmentalize them like Reddit does hostilities still break out from time to time.

He seems to already be well aware that the answer to "can't we all just get along" is "no" but the write-up seemed to focus on the lack of what these platforms are doing to address the reason why people are leaving. Not that they can't get along, but that there's not enough focus on quality interaction vs getting as much interaction as possible so they can monetize it.

[pwhodges]

^^
You're missing the point that universal connectedness is amplifying bad traits in a way that happened far less without the facilities offered by the Internet. Those of us using these facilities and those policing their use have equal responsibility for being aware of this and attempting to reduce the bad behaviour and the effects that amplify it.

Of course, that requires you to believe that taking steps to reduce bad behaviour is a good thing - I suppose there are those who don't. They're welcome to the future that will result, but I prefer to try to stem the deterioration in society. (And saying that society's always had bad things happening won't fly - it's always had people trying to improve matters as well.)

[Sachi]

Not that they can't get along, but that there's not enough focus on quality interaction vs getting as much interaction as possible so they can monetize it.

This I agree with. I stopped using Facebook because I was less and less interested in socializing with people on my page; that, and my feed essentially became nothing but game requests, shared/liked/recommended pages, and other assorted BS that I wasn't interested in. I deactivated my account, and haven't missed it since. I realized later that I never really socialized with anybody on that site to begin with, and so nothing much was lost.

[Gob Hobblin]

^^

It's also worth mentioning that a lot of the bad behavior one sees in a place like Twitter would, if it occurred in real life and not through a social media site, would either lead to mass violence (a bunch of pissed off people screaming insults at each other face-to-face usually doesn't end with everyone going home happy), or imprisonment (threatening to harm or rape someone is a criminal threat, and can be considered a felony offense in some jurisdictions).

Hell, it's technically ALREADY a crime (18 Code § 875 covers threats under interstate communications, which is what Twitter is: technically, all those collected death threats, rape threats, all that stuff...that's all already covered under a federal law). It's a lot easier to prosecute in a real life incident than an online one, though.

That being said, if we don't expect that sort of stuff in real life, why would we tolerate it online? The fact that Twitter has tacitly given permission to it (dragging their feet in bans, not following up on investigations, not modding, etc.), means that they have no interest in policing their community. In a real life situation like that, you get the hell out of whatever anarchic cess pit your living in, if you can.

[NemZ]

Not that they can't get along, but that there's not enough focus on quality interaction vs getting as much interaction as possible so they can monetize it.

That's a function of the way Twitter is designed from the ground up... a way to say basically nothing to potentially a whole lot of people you care nothing about beyond audience size. If you want quality interactions you need a format that encourages ongoing discussion with people you're likely to interact with again rather than throwing pithy one-liners into the howling void.

You're missing the point that universal connectedness is amplifying bad traits in a way that happened far less without the facilities offered by the Internet. Those of us using these facilities and those policing their use have equal responsibility for being aware of this and attempting to reduce the bad behaviour and the effects that amplify it.

What amplifies bad traits is the combination of anonymity and reach, yes, but also the fact that humans just aren't equipped to live in a truly global society because outside of a relatively small number of people we just are not physically capable of caring about others. We can hold to ideals in the abstract and apply them, but then it's more about how we relate to the principles than how we relate to those non-persons.

On top of that however you have people who are trying to effectively shut down free expression because of some misguided notion that they have a right to be free from offense. All their baseless whining distracts from things that are worth trying to limit and makes the whole discussion needlessly polarized.

[pwhodges]

On top of that however you have people who are trying to effectively shut down free expression because of some misguided notion that they have a right to be free from offense.

As opposed to those who use the concept of freedom of speech as a way to sidestep their responsibility for what comes out of their mouths. The trouble is that if one takes an absolute view of how you think other people think, this kind of polarisation is bound to happen. And it plays both ways; both sides need to work to improve things.

All their baseless whining distracts from things that are worth trying to limit and makes the whole discussion needlessly polarized.

As does complaining about them in turn, of course. The lack of acceptance of the possibility of differing views on all sides is one of the focusses of the article.

[Gob Hobblin]

^^

It is a big stretch to assume humans are PHYSICALLY incapable of living in a global society. The greater trends in social dynamics, examination of human response in the face of crisis and emergency, etc., show that humans trend towards communal thinking rather than not: we are pulling closer together with each successive generation.

I mean, why do beheading videos get so much attention? It's not because they're the norm, but because they are so unlike what normal humans do that it grabs mass attention. "Look at how screwed up this is!"

Social media violates the rules of interaction that we have developed up to this point. You can invade anybody's private space, at any time, without invitation, or repercussions. That's not how people behave in real life.

[NemZ]

It is a big stretch to assume humans are PHYSICALLY incapable of living in a global society.

See Dunbar's Number aka "the monkeysphere".

The greater trends in social dynamics, examination of human response in the face of crisis and emergency, etc., show that humans trend towards communal thinking rather than not: we are pulling closer together with each successive generation.

No, we're just getting better at reducing others into stereotypes and then doing everything we can to fit in with whatever smaller sub-group we choose to identify with.

Social media violates the rules of interaction that we have developed up to this point. You can invade anybody's private space, at any time, without invitation, or repercussions. That's not how people behave in real life.

If you're on social media you are decidedly NOT in your private space, and anything that happens there is not an invasion of your private life... it's an invasion of your public life.

[Gob Hobblin]

If you are having a conversation in a coffee shop, that conversation is private despite it being in a public place. Simply being in public does not change the right to privacy. If I'm having a conversation with friends, and someone I don't know barges in to talk about random shit, that person is not invited and is acting like a fucking lunatic.

That kind of behavior is allowed and even encouraged online.

[Ray]

Military Blimp comes loose and lands in Pennsylvania.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/10/28/politics/loose-blimp-norad-east-coast/

[NemZ]

If you are having a conversation in a coffee shop, that conversation is private despite it being in a public place.

Twitter is not a table in a coffee shop. This comparison is absurd.

[Ornette]

That's a function of the way Twitter is designed from the ground up... a way to say basically nothing to potentially a whole lot of people you care nothing about beyond audience size. If you want quality interactions you need a format that encourages ongoing discussion with people you're likely to interact with again rather than throwing pithy one-liners into the howling void.

I don't think anyone is blaming twitter for allowing abuse or whatever. It's the way it was designed. It was a completely new concept for connecting and sharing that didn't exist before. Lot's of people thought it was stupid. The implementation is what it is. All of this stuff, good and bad, was emergent out of an idea and couldn't have been anticipated when the idea first flew across the drawing board. There's really not much twitter can do about it now, it is what it is. I suppose the article's "lesson learned" is that simply providing the medium and allowing people to do what they do isn't going to be sustaining enough, even if you had no business model or whatever.

I don't necessarily agree with the assessment entirely but some of it is the hindsight being 20-20 and some of it is: the business model for social sucks and more needs to be done about it. I don't think this is all necessarily a bad thing. The focus here is the business and why someone like twitter is losing it. The claim is that all this negative stuff is driving some critical amount of people away. That may be the case and it may be the case that it will kill the business. Doesn't mean specifically that a medium that's used by terrorists or hackers to coordinate large scale attacks is all bad when it's also being used for a lot of positive things. Good for internet freedom, bad for business.

[Chuckman]

Twitter works best for artistic stuff, like this.

Also, social media is inherently dehumanizing and dehumanizing is bad. That's why social justice activists are so fucking nasty, they don't see their opponents as human.

[Dr. Nick]

Ukrainian conflict enters a new phase.

[Dream]

I don't know, i'm on the rather thin-skinned side and i can read /pol/ and tumblr just fine. I don't particularly enjoy the places, but that has probably more to do with severely introverted nature and lack of interest than being unable to stand the toxicity (or whatever). The idea of wanting online to be more like real life is not in the least natural or appealing to me, either. A huge part of why i like going online is precisely because it's not like "real life". We have a very unique and very beautiful thing here, no need to subject it to the artifices of meatspace interaction.

That said though, the twitter dude came off as extremely whiny smartass and "economics are pure evil" kind of writer. Not really someone i'd want to stake the free exchange of ideas vs. emotional considerations upon. Also, what Chuckman said.

[Alaska Slim]

Ukrainian conflict enters a new phase.

SPOILER: Show

As the comments point out, the audio is actually from this.

Love the flute in the background.


"GET IN THE FUCKING SHIP Shinji"

[Mr. Tines]

Walmart security guard says what he found behind the door of the unlocked stall is something that will "haunt his dreams forever."

[Dr. Nick]

Walmart security guard says what he found behind the door of the unlocked stall is something that will "haunt his dreams forever."

It's a fake news site, although definitely the most believable one I've seen, up and including the name of the site. I actually had to google the Marlboro M thing.